Post Surgery Healing
I had surgery a little over a month ago. I am having tingling and numbness in my fingers quite often. My incision area is also still swollen and red with a hard oblong knot in it. Should I be concerned or see my surgeon again?
The numbness and pain are different than before surgery - before surgery my hand would go numb but by moving my arm or shaking my hand it would quit - now there are times when I can't get relief - there is loss of sensation now as well, which I never had before. I also am having some pain in my hand, which I never had before.
It's hard to be sure in a forum conversation but that sounds as though it is at least as bad, if not worse, than before surgery - in which case it is time to start thinking about getting some nerve conduction studies done and/or possibly ultrasound imaging. Were there any pre-operative tests? JB
Yes, I had the nerve conduction testing done - which showed positive for Carpal Tunnel
Did they give you any idea of how severe the abnormality was? Nerve conduction studies are much more sophisticated than just a positive/negative test and preferably the report should be expressed as a formal severity grading (there are two good ones, my own and the Italian/Padua grading). Even if you were not told the grade, if you can lay hands on a copy of the results we can probably work out how bad they were. Most UK neurophysiology departments carry out these tests in a fairly standard way which allows me to grade, though the situation is different if a handheld simple testing machine is used by someone not qualified in neurophysiology - most of these do not allow a satisfactory grading. JB
That's pretty typical, and unfortunatley almost completley meaningless as one person's 'pretty bad' is the next man's 'mild' - I'm sorry that my colleagues are so inconsistent but that is life. If you can get hold of a copy of the results I'll happily take a look. Most departments are happy to let the patient have a copy. JB
That sort of problem with the incision is not uncommon and most of them seem to settle with persistent massage, though not all unfortunately. The tingling/numb fingers is a different issue. I think the big question to start with is is it better than it was before surgery? If it is clearly improved then I would be less concerned about it. I would still like to know what the nerve conduction results were like before surgery but as long as it is definitely improving it is unlikely that one would rush into further surgery. If, on the other hand, it is the same or worse than it was before surgery then it is probably time to start thinking about repeating the nerve conduction studies. JB